


An Essay In Solitude

by AmeliaHope



Series: A Study In Brotherhood [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Funeral, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-16 00:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5806603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmeliaHope/pseuds/AmeliaHope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This one got away from me a bit. Loosely fits in with the "A Study In Brotherhood" universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Essay In Solitude

It was a grey, miserable day. Fitting for a funeral, he thought as the voice of the vicar carried faintly across on the wind.

He stood alone at the back of the congregation of mourners, an invisible veil separating him from the rest of the world.

He had no real reason to attend but he hadn’t been able to stay away. He needed to pay his final respects to this woman. A woman who he had never properly met. A woman who had only seen him once when he was beyond consciousness. A woman who had comforted his dear little brother in a moment of need.

He should have died that day. Who would have stood by his grave if he had? Sherlock, perhaps, when he was older. Briefly, out of some sort of fraternal obligation. Standing by the grave on anniversaries before fading with evermore irregular visits until he stopped coming altogether.

Or would Sherlock have forgotten him? With just a distant memory of a brother he’d once had? A painful jolt of remembrance, occasionally thought of when the topic of brothers was raised?

Would he have forgotten him completely? Would he have forgotten the brother who had fought so hard to protect him, to care for him? Would he have been raised as an only child? Cared for by doting adoptive parents but without the companionship of a brother who truly understood him?

His parents would have still raised the child that they so desperately desired but without the added hassle of an anxious boy approaching adolescence.  It was a sobering thought, that perhaps Sherlock would have been better off without him. Would he have adjusted better to a new family without the constant reminder of his old one? Would he have gone to school and made friends rather than suffering from the isolation that resulted from demanding to be allowed to stay at home with his big brother?

He had always done his best for Sherlock but perhaps his best hadn’t been enough. Perhaps he had been more of a hindrance than a help. Sherlock would certainly agree with that statement.

Eventually everyone else left, eager to get out of the rain. He stood at the grave and for once felt truly alone. The first person, other than his brother, who had shown him any compassion was dead. He gazed mournfully at the delicately carved stone.

 

**_ELSIE CARTWRIGHT_ **

_Born_

_7 th April 1919_

_Died_

_22 nd February 2005_

_Beloved_

 

And he grieved for the life that he hadn’t had.

Slowly he walked away, drifting along a gravel path until he stood at another grave, a cheap metal plaque lacking in the pomp and circumstance of a lovingly carved headstone.

 

**Mycroft Evans**

Died

13th January 1986

 

How different life could have been.


End file.
